Barchester Towers - Wikisource, the free online library Barchester Towers Barchester Towers (1857) is the second novel in Trollope's six-part Chronicles of Barsetshire series. 252147Barchester TowersAnthony Trollope1906 "'Shall I begin, ma'am?' said Harry" Copyright, 1902, by Published November, 1902. PUBLISHERS' NOTE Among minor English novelists Anthony Trollope occupies the foremost place. In fact, there are few of the greatest who excel him in originality and delicacy of humor and the faithful portrayal of character. His work lacks very little of being that of genius. He was born in 1815; spent the greater part of his life in the postal service, as inspector in Ireland, England, and abroad; and died in 1882. In 1862 he visited the United States, and on his return published an account of his travels which was of considerable service in correcting English opinions on American affairs. "Barchester Towers," perhaps the best, certainly the most delightful, of his novels, was published in 1857.

Its scene is the cathedral town of "Barchester" (suggested by Salisbury), about which cluster a number of his most fascinating tales. The life of this imaginary town—the doings of its ecclesiastical dignitaries and of their neighbors—Trollope reveals with the exactness of a local historian and with inimitable humor. "I had formed for myself," he says, "so complete a picture of the locality, had acquired so accurate a knowledge of the cathedral town and the county in which I had placed the scene, and had become by a long-continued mental dwelling in it so intimate with sundry of its inhabitants, that to go back to it and write about it again and again has become one of the delights of my life." To peruse what he wrote is certainly one of the delights of the reader of English fiction. As pictures of contemporary life Trollope's works are unsurpassed.

They may, as has been truly said, "fall into temporary oblivion, but when the twentieth century desires to estimate the nineteenth, they will be disinterred and studied with an attention accorded to no contemporary work of the kind, except, perhaps, George Eliot's 'Middlemarch.' " CONTENTS Barchester Towers Summary & Study Guide Barchester Towers Summary & Study Guide This section contains 951 words (approx. 3 pages at 400 words per page) View a FREE sample Barchester Towers Summary & Study Guide Description Barchester Towers Summary & Study Guide includes comprehensive information and analysis to help you understand the book. This study guide contains the following sections: Quotes This detailed literature summary also contains Topics for Discussion and a Free Quiz on Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope. Barchester Towers is the chronicle of personal and political maneuvering within the Church of England in the mid-nineteenth century. The story begins as one Bishop of Barchester dies and a new bishop is selected. This new Bishop, Dr. Proudie, is led by his wife, Mrs. Proudie, and his domestic chaplain, Mr. Slope. Mrs. Proudie and Mr.

Slope are determined to shake up the church establishment in Barchester with a series of new policies and practices, including the formation of Sabbath, or Sunday schools. The established clergy of Barchester, led by Archdeacon Grantly, the son of the previous Bishop, are equally determined to keep things as they have always been. Tangled up in this church power struggle is Hiram's Hospital, a charitable establishment for retired people. A new warden is to be appointed to run this hospital and both sides want to put one of their own followers in this position. The Archdeacon wants to reappoint Dr. Harding, who held the position previously before a newspaper scandal forced him to resign. Dr. Harding is also the father of two daughters. The older daughter is Susan Grantly, who is married to the Archdeacon. The younger is Eleanor Bold, a new widow with a baby and a small fortune. At first Mrs. Proudie and Mr. Slope are united in their desire to appoint someone of their own group to the position. This unity ends, however, as the two of them fight between themselves for control over the Bishop. At first they work together to get the position for Mr.

Quiverful, an extremely poor preacher who has fourteen children and a very small income. Then Mr. Slope realizes that, because of her money, he wants to try to marry Eleanor, and he switches alliances to support Mr. Harding. This begins a struggle between Mrs. Proudie and Mr. Slope to get the Bishop to choose their candidate. Mr. Slope's interest in Eleanor has begun to worry her family, who think that she might consider marrying Slope, a prospect that fills them with horror. Without consulting Eleanor, they discuss the possible marriage behind her back and decide that if she does marry Slope, they will all refuse to see her anymore. Eleanor, however, has no intention of marrying Slope and no idea that her family thinks she will. She continues to see Mr. Slope because she feels it is wrong to be rude to him just because he has different opinions about the church. The next complication to enter the story is the return of the Stanhope family, which has been living in Italy the last twelve years. Dr. Stanhope is also a preacher, but he has neglected his post in England in order to live idly in Italy.

His children have been raised in Italy and are very badly suited to England. His oldest daughter Charlotte is trying to protect his only son, Bertie, who is lazy, good-natured, and deeply in debt. His other daughter, Madeleine, is crippled from an accident involving her now absent husband, Signor Neroni. She can't walk, is carried everywhere, and her only wish in life is to seduce every man she meets. She refers to herself as "the signora." Soon after their arrival to Barchester, two plots emerge. The first is the signora's seduction of Mr. Slope. The second is Charlotte's plan for Bertie to try to marry Eleanor for her money. In the ongoing power struggle between the Bishop's group and the Archdeacon, the Archdeacon has decided to call in a respected Oxford scholar, Mr. Arabin, to help him fight for traditional church values in Barchester by giving him the post of preacher at St. Ewold's, a small country church. Mr. Arabin is an older, unmarried, and very honest man who quickly finds himself in love with Eleanor. While Eleanor's family is convinced she will marry Mr.

Slope, Eleanor is actually growing closer to Mr. Arabin. Eleanor and her family have a huge fight when the Archdeacon reveals their suspicions, and they refuse to see each other for a while. Meanwhile, the Bishop has awarded the warden position to Mr. Quiverful, therefore giving Mrs. Proudie a victory and Mr. Slope a defeat. Mr. Slope is not discouraged, however, because a new position as Dean of Barchester Cathedral has just become available. Mr. Slope is determined to gain this new, important post. The Archdeacon's group is equally determined to keep him from getting this position. At a party to welcome Arabin to his new position at St. Ewold's, both Mr. Slope and Bertie Stanhope propose to Eleanor, which upsets her because she had not realized either of the men thought that she liked them in that way. Also at the party, the signora meets Mr. Arabin and decides, against her usual character, that she will help him to marry Eleanor because she feels he is a good, honest man incapable of being seduced. Two days after the party, the signora meets with Eleanor to tell her that Mr.

Arabin loves her. Eleanor loves Mr. Arabin but does not know what she should do about it. This problem is solved when a wealthy neighborhood lady, Miss Thorne, invites both Eleanor and Mr. Arabin to visit her at her country home. When they are left alone together, Mr. Arabin proposes and Eleanor accepts. Eleanor and Mr. Arabin return to town and announce their engagement. At the same time, Mr. Harding has been informed that he has been chosen to be the new Dean. He turns down the position and gets the church leaders to give it to Mr. Arabin instead. Mr. Slope leaves Barchester in disgrace. Eleanor and Mr. Arabin get married and everyone is very happy for them. Barchester Towers Audiobook | Anthony Trollope | Audible.com "Read The Warden first" I would urge the reader to consider reading the first book in the Barchester series --The Warden--before reading this one. Although one could read Barchester Towers alone and enjoy it immensely, I think the relationships between the central characters are better enjoyed and savored more fully if one has read about them first in The Warden.

(It's relatively short and very enjoyable.) Still BT is an enjoyable read all by itself and the wonderfully amusing wry asides by the author truly made me laugh out loud. If you yearn for a simpler time, or delight in the very best novels of English country life from Austen to Pym, or simply love an English sentence well-turned, you will enjoy this book. The reader is excellent. "MARVELOUS VINTAGE WINE MARVELOUSLY POURED" What can one say about Anthony Trollope? He's one of the giants. My wife wouldn't be found dead reading him so it is clear that not everyone falls for him, but for those who love Trollope, Barchester Towers is one of the loveliest, though frankly there's nothing Trollopian I wouldn't read. With readings, the narrator is also critically important and here we have Timothy West, who in my opinion is as good as it gets. I think he is not entirely on the mark with Madeleine, but bear in mind this book has multiple characters. Timothy West does a terrific job differentiating them.

He is better at men than at women - go figure - but he is overall so good that listening to this book was a pleasure from start to finish. "The Warden/Barchester Towers" I listened to The Warden/Barchester Towers after listening to The Way We Live Now (my first Trollope venture) and for that reason, I believe, I was not as entranced with the first two Barsetshire novels as I was with my first. The books are similar, in that they deal with issues of the time and the affairs of the many characters found throughout the book, but upon starting the Barsetshire books I was lost from the beginning because of all the religious terminology. I had to do a bit of research on the subject before I continued so I would not be completely lost. The Warden should be listened to first to get the feel for some of the main characters of Barchester Towers. Like The Way We Live Now, Trollope develops great characters we can really care for and really dislike. Trollope’s characterization is what keeps me coming back for more. Regarding the story, it is entertaining and funny and sometimes slow and boring.

Sometimes I had no idea what Trollope was going on about, but I always soon found myself back on track with the story and, having finished the story, feel that I didn’t miss that much when I was spacing out at the more tedious bits. Timothy West does an excellent job narrating and I must admit that his narration is another reason why I can’t quite give up on Trollope’s writing. After taking a little break, I attend on listening to Doctor Thorne and then, eventually, the rest of the series. All in all, this is pretty good story telling. ""I'll Slope him!" "I'll dean him!"" War in Barchester. The army invading the quiet cathedral town is spearheaded by the low church, hen-pecked, gormless new Bishop Proudie, his evangelical, despotic wife ("the she-bishop," the "Medea of Barchester"), and their odious, duplicitous, ambitious, bad-beef complexioned and clammy-handed chaplain Mr. Slope, who, fancying himself the true new Bishop of Barchester, plans to promote Sabbath-day schools and to throw the music and ceremony of the Anglican service out with the rubbish.

The outraged local defending forces are comprised of the modest, mild, weak, but stubborn ex-Warden of Hiram's Hospital Mr. Harding, his arrogant, righteous, and hot-tempered Archdeacon son-in-law Dr. Grantly, and the high church "champion," the thoughtful former Oxford professor of poetry and new vicar of St. Ewold, Mr. Arabin. Amid the warfare run rumors of courtship: Eleanor Bold, the younger daughter of Mr. Harding, with a beloved baby son and 1200 pounds per year, is a very eligible widow for suitors calculating, feckless, or inexperienced. Also mixed in the conflict is the Stanhope family, back in Barchester after a twelve-year sojourn in Italy, during which the father, a prebendary of the cathedral, was catching butterflies while supposedly caring for his sore throat.

The Stanhope son Bertie is a lazy, good-natured, and unprejudiced parasite, his sister Madeline (AKA La Signora Neroni) is a crippled, beautiful, arachnoid man-catcher with eyes bright as Lucifer's and compelling as a basilisk's, and the first-born daughter Charlotte does her best to enable the predilections of her younger siblings. In his second Barchester Chronicles novel, Barchester Towers (1857), then, Anthony Trollope sets these colorful characters in play with and against each other in a largely unpredictable and wholly entertaining comedy of manners with much to say about mid-nineteenth-century gender, class, age, reform, religion, love, family, and novels, all in a way that is particularly Victorian British and universally human. Trollope's writing is witty, elegant, suspenseful, knowing, allusive, and quotable. I enjoy, for example, his epic similes using classical literature, Elizabethan drama, or the Bible, as when he hilariously compares Mrs. Proudie to Achilles or Mr. Slope to Lady Macbeth.

Trollope's narrator and characters say pithy things like: "If honest men did not squabble for money in this wicked world of ours, the wicked men would get it all." "A man must be an idiot or else an angel, who, after the age of forty shall attempt to be just to his neighbours." "Gentlemen do not write to women about their tresses, unless they are on intimate terms." "There is no happiness in love, except at the end of an English novel." And Trollope relishes sympathetically mocking his characters, as when with heroic formality he encourages the Bishop to stand up to his wife: "Now, bishop, look well to thyself, and call up all the manhood that is in thee. Think how much is at stake. If now thou art not true to thy guns, no Slope can hereafter aid thee. How can he who deserts his own colours at the final smell of gunpowder expect faith in any ally. Thou thyself hast sought the battlefield; fight out the battle manfully now thou art there. Courage, bishop, courage! Frowns cannot kill, nor can sharp words break any bones.

After all the apron is thine own. She can appoint no wardens, give away no benefices, nominate no chaplains, an' thou art but true to thyself. Up, man, and at her with a constant heart." The novel is not without a disappointment or two. Eleanor's sister-in-law Mary Bold has devolved from an intelligent and independent woman who writes reform-minded newspaper pieces in The Warden (1855), the first novel in his Chronicles, to a bland live-in nanny in Barchester Towers. And some things, naturally enough, feel dated, like the ideas that the ideal condition of wife and husband is for the woman to be a beautiful parasitic plant like ivy decorating a wall (the man) and that independence is a "heavy burden" for women. But mostly I listened to Barchester Towers chuckling, grinning, and generally reveling in Trollope's characters, story, and prose and in Timothy West's virtuoso reading of them. As Juliet Stevenson was born to read Virgina Woolf, West was born to read Anthony Trollope.

He's perfect with people young and old, high and low, male and female, and unlike Simon Vance reading The Warden, West's Eleanor has no irritating falsetto. His Mr. Slope (nasally unctuous), Mr. Harding (mild, good, and weak) and Signora Neroni (provocative ersatz Italian charm) are all wonderful. Charles Dickens had crowded Trollope out of my life until I read The Warden, the first novel in his Chronicles, and was so delighted by it. Both authors write colorful and comical characters we care about, but while Dickens leans towards caricature, Trollope leans towards realism. Dickens' characters are often wholly good or wholly evil, while Trollope's are often very mixed indeed. (Compare Dickens' villain Uriah Heep with Trollope's Obadiah Slope.). Trollope feels less sentimental and melodramatic than Dickens, but after all they both wrote entertaining and page-turning, socially-conscious, humorous, and dramatic novels. I warmly urge fans of 19th century novels, especially readers familiar with Dickens but unfamiliar with Trollope, to read Barchester Towers.

(Though both The Warden and Barchester Towers tell self-contained stories, reading the first book first would increase one's pleasure in the sequel.) "A complete delight" Barchester Towers could have been written by Jane Austen's granddaughter! It is filled with janeisms but set some 50 years later. Trollope has the observations, the wit and the overall gentle and genteel comedy of manners and misunderstandings that made Jane Austen's books so loved. Even the characters are updated Austen characters, some with wonderful humorous names such as a father of 14 children being called Mr Quiverful and the social climbing farmers the Lookalofts. My personal favourate was Mr Slope who challenges Mr Collins from Pride and Prejudice as the most odious curate ever! I love the direct appeals Trollope makes to the reader - it brings you right into the action and Timothy West is absolutely perfect as the narrator. I believe, some narrators are born to read a particular author, Juliet Stevenson is perfect for Jane Austen as Timothy West is for Trollope. A match made in heaven!

At the end of The Warden I wasn't sure about Trollope and not sure if the Barsetshire series had grabbed me. I can tell you now at the end of Barchester Towers that I am totally smitten with it - I have already downloaded the next in the chronicles and can't wait to start it. Barchester Towers | Folio Illustrated Book There are currently no reviews available. Click here to be the first to review this book. Barchester Towers Till we can become divine, we must be content to be human, lest in our hurry for a change we sink to something lower When the kindly old bishop of Barchester dies, he does it at a most inconvenient time. The political ministry has changed, and instead of the mitre being offered to his son, the stern Dr Grantly, it goes to the ineffectual Proudie and his insufferable wife. In their wake comes the vile, power-hungry Obadiah Slope, determined to win himself a wealthy wife and to interfere in every aspect of church life. Barchester will never be the same again.

Production Details 9¾" x 6" The story of Barsetshire continues Barchester Towers continues the story of Eleanor and her father Septimus Harding from The Warden, but it introduces a host of other characters, delightfully comic and appalling by turns. The manipulative Signora Madeline Vesey Neroni, who reclines on a sofa all day, but ensnares plenty of hearts; the anxious Mrs Quiverful with her 14 children to maintain; Miss Thorne, obsessed with reviving the art of jousting… The inhabitants of Barchester are irresistible, and never more so than when they are locked in furious struggle. No one dissects 19th-century English society and the machinations of Church politics with more subtlety and humour than Trollope. In this, one of his finest works, he exposes the absurdities and vanities of both parties. Yet while his pen is razor-sharp, his heart is gentle – Trollope always shows the reader the kinder values that should prevail, as they do in the happy ending he offers to his best-loved characters.

‘One of the most acute and humane chroniclers of public and private life in the High Victorian period’ KATHRYN HUGHES Click here to read a blog post by the illustrator, Bill Bragg. The Case of the Moving Cathedral: Mapping Trollope’s Barsetshire ‘I almost fear’, wrote Anthony Trollope in Framley Parsonage, ‘that it will become necessary, before this history be completed, to provide a map of Barsetshire for the due explanation of all these localities.’ In his Autobiography, Trollope reveals that he began work on such a map during the writing of Framley Parsonage (1860). Yet Trollope’s sketch did not come to light until 1927, when it was reproduced in Michael Sadleir’s Trollope: A Commentary. Before 1927, Trollope scholars had puzzled over the inconsistencies within the Barsetshire novels, in which the wealth of geographical detail is sometimes vague or contradictory: the eagleeyed reader will notice a moving cathedral, a shrinking distance between two villages and a railway with an implausible detour built into its tracks.

Ronald Knox, who continued Trollope’s Barsetshire narrative in his own novel Barsetshire Pilgrimage (1935), first mapped the fictional county in 1922. American enthusiast Spencer van Bokkelen Nichols published his critical essay ‘The Significance of Anthony Trollope’ in 1925, featuring a map based on his research into the texts and painted by George F. Muendel. When Trollope’s sketch was published, various differences between this and earlier maps were immediately clear, most noticeably the placing of Greshamsbury, which Nichols and Knox located in west Barsetshire, but which Trollope drew in the east. The map reproduced as endpapers to the Folio edition is based on Trollope’s sketch and was drawn by Lynton Lamb, an English author, lithographer and illustrator who designed book covers, postage stamps and posters, and exhibited at the 1951 Festival of Britain. The jewel in the Trollopian crown ‘In the writing of Barchester Towers I took great delight,’ recalled Anthony Trollope in his Autobiography and, indeed, you can feel that pleasure bubbling up in every line of the book.

Barchester Towers is not a cruel or satirical cackle so much as a gentle pondering of the absurdities of life, whether or not you happen to wear a clerical collar or know someone who does. Who can forget the great comic creations of Mrs Proudie, the interfering bishop’s wife, or Obadiah Slope, her appalling chaplain who oozes clamminess and spiritual pride? And then there are all those other Barchestonians, associated with the Church by community and familial ties, who are struggling to come to terms with the blistering pace of social and institutional change. Some characters, like Francis Arabin, will accommodate themselves to the new order without compromising themselves, others, like Miss Thorne, the squire’s sister, will find themselves forever bewildered and left behind. Trollope charts their journeys with a blend of perception and empathy that gives a sense of wholeness to the book. For many devoted readers Barchester Towers is quite simply the jewel in the Trollopian crown. An extract from Kathryn Hughes's introduction Inside the book Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope Barchester Towers Barchester Towers (1857) is a novel by Anthony Trollope.

It is the second in the series of novels known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, which include The Warden (1855), Barchester Towers (1857), Doctor Thorne (1858), Framley Parsonage (1861), The Small House at Allington (1864), and The Last Chronicle of Barset (1867). The chronicles describe events in the cathedral town of Barchester. The novel begins with the death of Bishop Grantley. His son, the Archdeacon Grantley, is anxious to become the next Bishop, but the new government in London appoints Dr. Proudie as the new Bishop. Dr. Proudie is an ambitious man, who is dominated by his wife. Mrs. Proudie attempts to control the diocese of Barchester by promoting evangelical causes such as Sunday schools, and by eliminating high-church ritual such as chanting. Mrs. Proudie and her ally, the Bishop�s new chaplain, Mr. Slope, antagonize the established ecclesiastical society of Barchester, particularly Archdeacon Grantley. Mr.

Slope delivers a sermon in which he is critical of the practice of chanting. This is a direct attack at Rev. Harding, the former Warden of the Hospital. Mr. Slope attempts to manipulate Bishop Proudie, and thus to gain control over church patronage in Barchester. Rev. Septimus Harding is an aging clergyman, who no longer feels capable of taking on strenuous duty, and who desires a peaceful retirement. Mr. Harding wants to avoid any quarrel or personal conflict. He had resigned from his position as Warden of Hiram�s Hospital, after he had been criticized by the newspaper, The Jupiter, for the salary he had received as Warden. Mr. Harding is now Vicar of St. Cuthbert�s. He hopes to be reappointed to his post as Warden of the Hospital, though he would receive a smaller salary. When Mr. Slope, as the Bishop�s chaplain, offers the position of Warden to Rev. Harding, however, it is with the conditions that Mr. Harding be expected to conduct several services a week and also conduct Sunday schools, and Mr. Harding has to refuse such arduous conditions. Mr. Slope actually wants Mr.

Quiverful to be appointed as Warden, so that he will have an ally in his quest for control of the diocese of Barchester. Another change of policy is made when the Bishop announces, through Mr. Slope, that absentee clergymen should return to fulfill their duties. For years, Dr. Vesey Stanhope has left his duties to his curates, and has lived with his family in Italy. Now Dr. Stanhope has to return to England with his wife and three grown children, Charlottle, Madeline, and Ethelbert. Charlotte Stanhope is the oldest daughter, and manages the household and the rest of the family. Ethelbert (also called Bertie) is an irresponsible and unambitious young man, who dabbles in art. Madeline is a beautiful young woman who has been deserted by her Italian husband. Madeline had been maimed and left lame by her husband, so that now she demands to be carried wherever she wants to go, while she reclines on a sofa. She calls herself La Signora Madeline Vesey Neroni.

She pretends that she is related to Italian nobility, though her husband was only an adventurer, a captain in the Pope�s guard. Madeline attracts men easily, flirting with, and seducing them. Bishop and Mrs. Proudie give a reception at the Bishop�s Palace. Madeline captures Mr. Slope�s attention, and makes an enemy of Mrs. Proudie When the post of Parson of St. Ewold�s in Barchester becomes vacant, Archdeacon Grantley takes a trip to Oxford, and persuades Rev. Francis Arabin to accept the post. Mr. Grantley wants an ally in the struggle against Mr. Slope. Mr. Arabin is a scholarly clergyman, who is a bachelor. Mr. Arabin has no desire for wealth or power, unlike Mr. Slope. Rev. Harding has two daughters. The older daughter, Susan, is married to Archdeacon Grantley. The younger daughter, Eleanor, is the wealthy widow of John Bold. Eleanor lives with her baby son and with her sister-in-law, Mary Bold. When the ambitious and scheming Mr. Slope hears of Eleanor�s wealth, he begins courting her.

At the same time, he has already forced Mr. Harding to refuse the post of Warden at the Hospital, and has offered the post to Mr. Quiverful. Mr. and Mrs. Quiverful are struggling to support fourteen children, and Mr. Quiverful is eager to accept the post under any conditions. Mr. Slope attempts to win Eleanor by telling her that he is concerned about her father, and by trying to persuade the Bishop to unconditionally offer the wardenship to Mr. Harding. Mrs. Proudie, however, is able to assert her domination over her husband by persuading him to offer the post to Mr. Quiverful. Mr. Slope becomes Mrs. Proudie�s enemy, and loses his position of influence with the Bishop. Meanwhile, Charlotte Stanhope has realized that her younger brother Bertie will never be able to support himself, and she decides that Bertie should marry Eleanor. Charlotte tries to persuade Bertie to court Eleanor, and to marry her for her money. Mr. Thorne and his sister, Miss Thorne, are members of an aristocratic family of Barsetshire. The Thornes of Ullathorne give a party, which is attended by all the clergy.

Eleanor finds herself traveling to the party in the same carriage with Mr. Slope, whom she now greatly dislikes. Later that day, as she is walking with Mr. Slope, he suddenly puts his arm around her, and declares his love. She slaps him on the cheek, and rushes away. At the same party, Bertie later walks with Eleanor, and tells her that his sister Charlotte had urged him to marry her for her money. Eleanor is angered, and feels insulted by the Stanhope family. That evening, when Dr. Stanhope learns what has happened, he insists that Bertie begin to earn a living. Bertie has to leave for Italy several days later. The Dean of Barchester dies, and Mr. Slope attempts to get himself appointed as Dean. However, he is dismissed as chaplain by Dr. and Mrs. Proudie. He returns to London. Eleanor has fallen in love with Mr. Arabin, and they plan to marry. The deanship of Barchester is offered to Mr. Harding, but he refuses to accept the post. Archdeacon Grantley maneuvers to have the deanship offered to Mr.

Arabin, who becomes the new Dean of Barchester. Mr. Harding shows kindness and concern toward Mr. Quiverful by helping him to begin duties as Warden of the Hospital. The novel ends by showing that Mr. Harding�s sincerity and humility make him different from the other clergymen in Barchester. An important theme of the novel is that of personal ambition. Archdeacon Grantley is ambitious to become Bishop after his father�s death. Dr. Proudie, on his appointment as Bishop, is eager to become Archbishop. Mr. Slope is ambitious to have control over the power and patronage of the diocese of Barchester. The novel shows the corrupting nature of ambition, and of the quest for power. Trollope�s major technique in the novel is that of comic irony. The manipulation and intrigue practiced by the clergy of Barchester is revealed, and the honesty and integrity they are supposed to represent is contrasted with the scheming nature of their quest for influence and power. The novel shows the worldliness of the clergy, and exposes the hypocrisy of the Church and of Victorian society. Another important theme is the nature of friendship. The novel shows the difference between true and false friendship. Mr.

Slope tells Eleanor that he is her father�s friend, but he is really interested only in his own pursuit of wealth and power. Charlotte tells Eleanor that she is her friend, but what she really wants is to push Eleanor into a relationship with her irresponsibile brother, Bertie. However, Mr. Harding shows the nature of true friendship. At the end of the novel, Mr. Harding is a true friend to Mr. Quiverful by introducing him to his new duties at the Hospital. The novel shows that true friendship is generous and unselfish, and that false friendship is selfish and calculating. Copywright© 2000AlexScott Anthony Trollope (Author of Barchester Towers) edit data Anthony Trollope became one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era. Some of Trollope's best-loved works, known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, revolve around the imaginary county of Barsetshire; he also wrote penetrating novels on political, social, and gender issues and conflicts of his day. Trollope has always been a popular novelist.

Noted fans have included Sir Alec Guinness (who never travelled without a Trollope novel), former British Prime Ministers Harold Macmillan and Sir John Major, economist John Kenneth Galbraith, American novelists Sue Grafton and Dominick Dunne and soap opera writer Harding Lemay. Trollope's literary reputation dipped somewhat during the last years of his life, b Anthony Trollope became one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era. Some of Trollope's best-loved works, known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, revolve around the imaginary county of Barsetshire; he also wrote penetrating novels on political, social, and gender issues and conflicts of his day. Trollope has always been a popular novelist. Noted fans have included Sir Alec Guinness (who never travelled without a Trollope novel), former British Prime Ministers Harold Macmillan and Sir John Major, economist John Kenneth Galbraith, American novelists Sue Grafton and Dominick Dunne and soap opera writer Harding Lemay. Trollope's literary reputation dipped somewhat during the last years of his life, but he regained the esteem of critics by the mid-twentieth century. Anthony Trollope.

New York Public Library Anthony Trollope’s Barchester Towers is the next selection for A Year of Great Books, a Slate Academy. To learn more, read Laura Miller’s introduction to the series , or visit Slate.com/GreatBooks . Laura Miller is a books and culture columnist for Slate and the author of The Magician’s Book: A Skeptic’s Adventures in Narnia . Follow her on Twitter . Our friends at Audible have another gift for Slate Plus members: a complimentary audiobook of Barchester Towers. Tolstoy and Henry James loved his novels, but most of the many, many people who avidly read the work of Anthony Trollope today don’t owe their passion to a college professor or highbrow critic. His novels are rarely assigned in courses, and officious parroters of conventional wisdom are forever remarking that he’s not up to the standard of other Victorian classics. Yet you can find thriving Trollope societies on both sides of the pond and die-hard fans in seemingly every walk of life. The reason for this is simple: the vast amount of sheer pleasure readers get from his novels.

Barchester Towers , the second in a loosely connected series of novels called The Chronicles of Barsetshire, provides an astonishing quantity of delight for a book whose subject is the petty power struggles within the ecclesiastical circle in a fictional cathedral town. There’s a high-church faction, invested in the grand and traditional modes of worship and observance, and an invading low-church contingent that advocates greater reformist piety—like prohibiting travel on Sunday, the pet cause of the new bishop’s wife, Mrs. Proudie, and her insinuating chaplain Obadiah Slope, the novel’s villain. But, as most readers quickly realize, the actual bone of contention doesn’t matter much; it’s the contention itself—and above all how the various characters engage in it—that powers the novel. Barchester Towers is, in essence, a workplace comedy. The Trollope of Barchester Towers is about as worldly as a novelist can get without tipping over into outright cynicism.

(The Way We Live Now illustrates how he saw things at a later, less sanguine stage in his life.) Like Jane Austen, he understands human beings to be motivated by a balance of principle and self-interest and that too much of either is equally likely to lead to trouble. The preceding novel in the series, The Warden, describes the scandal surrounding the decent old gentleman Septimus Harding, whose position running a charitable retirement home becomes the subject of a reform campaign. * It’s impossible not to want Mr. Harding to keep his position as warden, but it’s equally impossible not to see that the people who want to take it away from him have a point. In Barchester Towers, Mr. Harding hopes to regain the wardenship, but Mrs. Proudie and Mr. Slope want to give it to a poor clergyman with 14 children, who obviously needs it more. We root for the low-church faction to fail because they’re self-serving and unkind while Mr. Harding is sweet. And so Trollope enlists his readers in the tricky, ambiguous task of making moral sense of the scuffles of everyday life. Another of Mr.

Slope’s projects entails the whipping-into-shape of those clergymen who are supported by church sinecures and “livings” but who don’t do any work. One of them, the Rev. Dr. Vesey Stanhope, is forced with his family to return to Barchester from Italy, where he has been collecting butterflies for the past 12 years. With him come his three adult children, including the inimitable Signora Neroni, a devastating flirt who, as a result of a riding accident, must be carried into rooms and arranged picturesquely on sofas. The Stanhope siblings are reprehensible people—irresponsible, flippant, lazy, and heartless, despite their amiable, obliging temperaments. But the reader’s heart lifts every time they appear on the page, because they’re witty, charming pot-stirrers who promise, deliciously, to vex the schemes of Proudie and Slope. Although never celebrated for the beauty of his prose, Trollope has no rival as a creator of characters.

“He seems not to have invented them but to have found himself in their company ,” wrote the critic John Bayley, adding that he “knows them as a wife was once said to know her husband, or a valet his master. He knows them from the inside out, from the weak, uncertain interior to the armored persona that has grown up for public use.” The only remedy for this particular species of disillusionment is fondness and humor, and no one can beat Trollope on that front. He always stops short of mere caricature, and key to the subtle bite of his famous irony is that, good or bad, his characters’ follies are often a discomfiting reflection of our own.

“Considering how much we are all given to discuss the characters of others,” he observes in Barchester Towers, “and discuss them often not in the strictest spirit of charity, it is singular how little we are inclined to think that others can speak ill-naturedly of us, and how angry and hurt we are when proof reaches us that they have done so.” This endlessly amused and ultimately forgiving attitude toward humanity and its flaws—the ways we fail to live up to our ideals and occasionally surprise ourselves and others with our goodness—lacks the visionary grandeur that some people demand of literature. (Trollope’s posthumously published autobiography, which included a matter-of-fact account of his daily work habits, also offended anyone who preferred to think of novels as mystical gifts of the muse.) For the better part of a century, his reputation among scholars and critics languished. But Trollope has always been read—devotedly, hungrily, lovingly—and it is all those readers, alone in their rooms with a book but also immersed in worlds as varied and familiar and perplexing as the one outside their doors, who have had the last and longest laugh.

*Correction, July 7, 2016: This article originally misspelled character Septimus Harding’s last name. ( Return. )

Question: Who wrote the novel "Barchester Towers"?
Answer: Anthony Trollope